FloWave technical visit

Following the conference, delegates can participate in a visit to the FloWave Ocean Energy Research Facility.

During the visit, FloWave staff will explain and demonstrate the capabilities of the test tank, as well as the advantages it offers for testing innovative ocean energy technologies.

Conceived for cutting-edge collaborative academic and industrial research into wave and tidal current interactions, the FloWave Ocean Energy Research Facility is an essential tool to ensure technologies and projects perform ‘right first time’ and are de-risked as much as practical before cutting steel or going offshore.

You can choose to register for this visit while registering for OEE2018. If you are already registered for OEE2018, you can modify your registration here.

Please note that there is limited capacity for the technical visit, and places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. The visits are offered free-of-charge but you must pre-register.

This visit is sponsored by the MET-CERTIFIED project.

The heart of FloWave is a 25m diameter basin, with a working depth of 2m. Containing more than 2.4 million litres of water the test tank is divided into upper and lower volumes, separated by a 1m thick moveable floor. The upper test volume is circumferentially ringed by 168 absorbing wave makers, whilst the lower volume contains the twenty-eight flow-drive units that can simultaneously and independently drive current across the upper test volume in any relative direction, with maximum current velocities of 1.6 metres per second.

The rising tank floor and 5t overhead crane enable quick and easy installation of individual devices, or arrays of wave or tidal current generators, and the fast settling time between tests combine to enable very efficient, effective and data-intensive test campaigns.